A Study On Translator’s Subjectivity: A Case Study Of English Translation Of Wang Wei’s Pastoral Landscape Poetry On "Emptiness" Of The Chan Culture

This thesis intends to make a case analysis as well as a comparative study on Englishtranslation of Wang Wei’s pastoral landscape poetry, especially the interpretation of“Emptiness” of Chan culture, from the perspective of translators’ subjectivity so as torender them a better understanding of their subjectivity in translation activity and to take anoverall control of such subjectivity in order to produce more objective and effective works.It undertakes a case study on English translation of the Zhongnan Mountains (《终南山》), translated by Wang Baotong and Zhu Chunshen, and the Stillness Audible (《鸟鸣涧》), translated by W. J. B. Fletcher and Weng Xianliang. After a thorough interpretationof translators’ subjectivity-translators’ initiatives-the writer explores into four aspects oftranslators’ initiatives, namely cultural awareness of translators, their backgrounds, readerawareness of translators, as well as domestication and foreignization of emotions.The comparative study has led to a conclusion that cultural elements and words usedin target language which have the closest conceptual meaning with those in sourcelanguage will help target readers comprehend. Also, translator’s background has aprofound impact on the translation process for the translator will be greatly affected bytranslation concept prevailing at their times, with their education background factored in.Reader awareness of translators is also critical in that the translator will not produce anoutstanding piece without being conscious of the existence of the target readers. Noticeably,readers of the source culture might differ from those in the target culture. Employingdifferent cultural icons or images, there will be a similarity or a great gap between thesource culture and the target culture, with the similar ones being closer to the target readersand the distinct ones being far from the target readers emotionally.Therefore, translators shall be fully conscious of the existence of their subjectivitiesand endeavor to adopt those which will result in an effective and well-accepted translationwork.